The campaign is for Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk, a fortified milk drink enriched with key nutrients that toddlers aged 1-to-3 years need to support their growth and development. Cow & Gate is the leading brand in this emergent category.In December 2010, the category, whilst commercially successful, had relatively low awareness levels and saliency - receiving only 8 online mentions per quarter, 75% of which were negative or neutral.

Generic Google searches delivered out-of-date, badly-informed, and often scathing forum threads from mothers dubious of the product’s benefits. The task was clear: increase mums’ understanding of the whole category. Our brief was to generate more conversation, more often, more positively about the category.We devised a 3-phase strategy across paid, owned, and earned media: 1. Neutralise incorrect information; 2. Engage with mums to explain the role of Growing Up Milk, fuelling word of mouth; 3. Ignite interest in the category via a traditional PR campaign.Launched in August 2011, our campaign generated impressive results in just 7 months, including; • The number 1 natural Google search ranking for our informational website;• 333% search uplift;• 1,500 moments with influential mums;• PR coverage worth £1.8m.

3-phase strategy, across paid, earned and owned media:1. Neutralise the field; create informative contentWe built a home for information about the category, www.growingupmilkinfo.com, featuring information, infographics and unscripted expert and mum testimonials. It allows us to correct badly-informed content online and is a resource for mums looking for information when switching milks at 12 months. Paid, earned and owned activity is directed to the website.2. Ignite the growing up milk message; build brand advocatesSeventy mums (‘Mumtors’) with a passion for Growing Up Milk were identified and became a vocal community sharing their passion for Growing Up Milk with friends and family, blogging, commenting on forums and newspaper articles.3. Engage the media and real mums; change perceptions of the category Traditional PR campaign – supported with retailer and parenting advertorials – raised awareness in mainstream and mum media. Proactive stories included the UK’s first Toddler Census.

Paid• 6m advertorial impressions;• 7.3m PPC impressions;• Average daily PPC goal completions: 6%;• • 100% higher than competitor PPC activity; • 2.2m Facebook advertising impressions.Owned• www.growingupmilkinfo.com the number 1 organic search result;• Risen from page 3 of Google to number 1 in 6 months;• 17% of the campaign’s keywords rank on the first page of Google;• Over 10,000 visitors to www.growingupmilkinfo.com (of target audience of 900,000) – 100% increase in traffic since launch;• 25,000 infographic views with a retention 50% longer than industry average.Earned• 400 pieces of coverage;• 505m OTS;• Average campaign key message delivery: 55%;• £1.8m AVE;• Over 1,500 ‘Mumtor moments’ (proactive and reactive posts, shares, new recruits and external eulogising);•‘Growing up Milk’ search uplift by 333%